


The Bifrost Statements

by alwaysyourqueen



Category: The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Album), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Past Lives, Retelling, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), TBI is a past life concept?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysyourqueen/pseuds/alwaysyourqueen
Summary: Another life, another world, bleeds through the cracks of a false reality.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	1. Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Loki O’Reilly regarding a series of intense dreams. Statement taken direct from subject, the thirteenth of March, 2017.

[Click.]

ARCHIVIST   
So what exactly brings you here to the Archives?

LOKI   
I’ve been having…weird dreams. But the type of dreams that make sense, and follow one another up. I don’t really know how to explain it, but they feel more like memories than dreams. Like, I’m remembering things, and the only way they come through is when I’m asleep. Only, that makes no sense, because they don’t make sense.

[There is a bit of shuffling as Loki moves uncomfortably in her seat.]

ARCHIVIST   
I see. Well, we can get right down to it?

LOKI   
Yeah, sure.

ARCHIVIST   
Statement of Loki O’Reilly regarding a series of intense dreams. Statement taken direct from subject, the thirteenth of March, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute. Statement begins.

LOKI (Statement)   
I’ve always had fairly intense dreams. Ever since I was a kid, and really really intense stuff would happen in them. My wife, Sigyn, is always a big figure in them.

ARCHIVIST   
Full names, please, if you don’t mind.

LOKI   
Oh, uh, sure. Sigyn O’Reilly. An old friend and later my boss, Odin Evans, and my childhood best friend Thor Davies, and his husband Baldur Davies. I used to have some other friends in them, but most of them have disappeared lately. The dreams never really bothered me. It was kind of fun, actually, having adventures in my dreams to tell my friends about. People only like hearing about your dreams when they’re in them.

The world I imagined in my dreams was very interesting. Odin was the ruler of a group of planets and I was her chief engineer, at the beginning at least. She was a great ruler, who spread our home planet’s greatness or whatever to every corner of the solar system we were in. At one point, things took a really dramatic turn. Odin was obsessed with this song? I don’t know what the song was, but she kept telling me “the void sings.” Any time she was in a dream, she specifically told me that the void was calling to her. She wanted to build a train through the stars. I agreed to help her because I was the engineer, she needed someone to build her train for her.

At this point it just seems like crazy dream stuff. But unlike normal dreams, I started getting really creeped out. I created this train device out of super advanced technology, but I realized Odin was getting extreme. She was subjugating people and generally being a cruel dictator. She didn’t care about anything except that damn train. I ended up leaving her side, and I joined an underground movement to fight back against her and her entire government. There was another planet I traveled to, and I met this huge man with a scruffy beard who liked to fight. His name was…Fenris? Fenrir, that’s it. I joined his gang, and that’s when I met Sigyn in the dream. I fell in love with her, and I think that was real life bleeding through a little. She was also part of this rebellion, so we worked together on our projects. We actually got married too. I was this mechanical genius, so I made missiles and bombs and ships and anything we needed to keep our fighting going. I once had an entire dream that was just manufacturing a gun. A really weird gun. It fired laser beams instead of bullets, like on telly, only real. I knew in an instant I could exactly make it if I needed to. Which wouldn’t be that weird except that it persisted even hours after I woke up, like if I had the components I saw in the dream I could build it with my hands. That’s weird, right? Building a sci-fi gun based on a dream?

Anyways, it started getting worse when I was a teenager. It started being really upsetting, actually. The dreams aren’t always my perspective, and they’re not any kind of innocent anymore. When I was maybe fourteen, I had a nightmare in which I caused an explosion on a train, and Baldur got blown up in it. I never got the image out of my head of…of Thor screaming at me, and swearing he’d kill me for what I’d done. My next dream had flashes of different things going on.

I was starting to get mental health help at that point, and when I took my medication the dreams stopped. After that, I was relieved. I still had daydreams, sometimes, of my little alternate world. But these were more tame, and unlike when I was asleep I could pull myself out of them. I stopped actually having the dreams for a long, long time. Medication and therapy and all of that and I lived a very normal life, for someone with the issues I have at least. Sigyn and I started dating, and we got married. We were even thinking about having kids for a while, but then things got worse for me recently. I say recently, more like the past six months or so.

The dreams came back. Absolutely no warning, no precipitating life events, nothing. I suddenly started getting my dreams back. And they’re so much weirder than last time, just a whole different level.

First I’m chained up in this room, and I can’t move except I can talk and I can look around the room. It’s like a prison cell, more than anything else, and I can feel time slipping away. It felt like I was in that dream for weeks, sitting there. Waiting for anyone to free me. The following dreams were the same, and I started to wake up mid-panic-attack.

Sigyn made me go to the doctor and I’ve been trying sleep medication, but without fail the dreams keep coming back. And the story is getting more intense, and more painful to live through. It’s getting to the point where the me in the dreams barely has a hold on reality, and I can’t stop myself rambling nonsense and trying to conceptualize things that I don’t understand.

I’m a passive observer, and I see someone dragged up onto a stage or podium. Odin is giving an announcement, but all I hear is the crying of this woman next to me. I can’t turn my eyes to look, but there’s some commotion. I can’t see it, I can’t see any of it, but it makes me panic.

It went back to me alone, in this cell. Now, sometimes, Odin comes in. Sometimes someone else. They never speak to me. Sometimes give me food and water. For the most part, they listen when I speak and write it down. Never responding. I beg them to give me a clock, or anything to gauge time with. They put this device against my head sometimes, and after that I lose consciousness and it’s inky blackness for what feels like days.

After a long time of these, my new dream is on a new train. This one I helped build, I know that. We’re shooting through a rainbow colored sky. Thor finds me, in a room I’ve been confined to. I don’t recognize him, and he’s shocked to see me. He gets really angry, and he storms out. There’s a lot of commotion, and Sigyn comes into my prison cell. She tells me she thinks I died. I don’t even recognize her in the dream. She seems like a stranger, but I know it’s Sigyn. She’s crying.

Sigyn leaves me to do something. She says it’s important, and she’ll be back for me. I leave my compartment, and find my way through this train. I find Odin, who doesn’t look like herself. She tells me about her plan. She knew the train would go wrong, she knew everything would happen like this. She wanted us to die. I want to find Sigyn, so I can die with someone who loves me, and Odin doesn’t stop me.

My next dream I know took place at the same time as the previous one. I’m a floating, bodiless orb. I see Sigyn and Thor in the engine room, but there’s no engine. There’s only a body, laid on an altar. I know instantly I put this together. It’s Sigyn’s coworker, Kvasir, and he’s beating along with the hum of the train. Sigyn pulls him out, and Thor wrecks every control he can get his hands on. The train shudders, and I wake up.

Another one where I’m not me. A woman gets pulled into the walls of the train, unable to scream while her husband disappears. She’s part of the train now. Her brother is roasted by the fire of a nearby sun breaking through the windows. I feel like they’re not the only ones dying here. I know they’re not. But something is eating them, taking their pain and their suffering and consuming it. It wants everyone to feel that pain.

A new one, and I’m me again. I run into Thor, who looks like he hates me, then forgets that he’s supposed to. This is the first time I really remember something. I have these strong flashes of caring. I know he was my friend, and he tells me we’re friends again now, as the universe comes apart. He embraces me just for a moment, and we walk past one another. It feels like I’m saying goodbye to him, and when I woke up from this one I actually had to call him to make sure he was okay. He was annoyed I woke him up at four in the morning sobbing like a maniac, but Thor gets angry easily. I know he doesn’t mean anything by it.

Reality is coming apart, and I can feel the screams of the void outside pressing in on me. They’re compressing, and compressing, until I find Sigyn again. She’s so depressed, so ready to give up, and we find a way to fix it. I become a part of the train, and I can feel my heart pushing it somewhere. And for the past month, every dream has been me being there. I feel my chest pumping the train forward, and I have Sigyn with me, sitting in this disgusting, empty engine room. Nothing feels real except the two of us and this little metal compartment keeping us from being sucked into the black nothingness of the universe around us.

I have them at least once a week, usually more. I can’t remember a lot of the dreams, but all I’ve got is this terrible feeling in my gut that I’m going to be in terrible trouble once the train reaches its destination. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.

ARCHIVIST   
Statement ends. [A long, possibly over-dramatic sigh.] These dreams do sound strange, but given your mental health history, I’d be willing to bet it’s a sign of something unresolved you need to work on.

LOKI   
After all that, that’s all you’ll say?

ARCHIVIST   
It is a bit hard to do follow-up on…dreams.

LOKI   
Just…please do, if you can, okay? I think it’s important.

ARCHIVIST   
I will, Mrs. O’Reilly. I think you should go home and get some rest.

LOKI   
I think…I think you’re right.

[CLICK.]

[CLICK.]

ARCHIVIST   
I think Loki O’Reilly is a very kind woman, but severely overestimates the reality of her dreams. Still, I did what I could. We confirmed that her name is, actually, Loki O’Reilly, and her wife’s is Sigyn O’Reilly. They have neighbors in their general area with the names Odin Evans, Thor Davies, and Baldur Davies. There was even a man named Fenrir von Raum who was arrested and sent to prison for assault with a deadly weapon. He used to live in the house where the O’Reillys live now.

Martin looked into what health records he could obtain, and her physical health has always been fine. Obviously, we couldn’t acquire all her mental health records, as patient confidentiality laws keep that from independent agencies such as the Institute. A pain, really, but what can you do. What we did discover is that she has been more than a few doctors before she found the caregiver she has now. The police were called on her residence on the seventeenth of October of last year, with a noise complaint. They left without issue, but their report was never filed, or it was so classified Tim couldn’t even find out if it existed.

I also decided to do a little digging of my own. I found an old book called Norse Gods and Giants, published in 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. They were immigrants, and researched deeply into mythology before publishing their books. The stories of the Norse caught my attention. I never read this type of mythology because despite my desire for books I never ventured into these particular types, as mythology usually told the same stories over and over again. However, Mrs. O’Reilly’s dreams seem to follow a somewhat less conventional interpretation of the events of Ragnarok, or the end of days. Some details are changed, but the way she described certain figures, and their relations, as well as the fact that all of their names now are those from the mythology…well, it’s not exactly proof, but it seems unlikely to be coincidence. Still, it’s more than likely this was a result of an overactive imagination, and not much more than that. Recording ends.

[CLICK.]

[CLICK.]

ARCHIVIST   
Supplemental. I have reason to believe that Loki O’Reilly’s dreams are a sign of a connection to…something. I haven’t figured out what it is yet, but there’s this feeling in my gut that she’s looking at something that I can’t see. There’s some truth behind what she’s saying, but I don’t have enough information to investigate on my own. I might try to do some, but if I spend too much time looking Martin will keep checking up on me. I don’t want him to get suspicious of what I’m looking into. It could be that Loki’s ability to see things is exactly what I need to get past this hump of my investigation into Gertrude’s death. End supplemental.

[CLICK.]


	2. Sigyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Sigyn O’Reilly regarding the disappearance of her wife. Statement taken direct from subject, the nineteenth of April, 2017.

[CLICK.]

SIGYN   
So are you going to investigate where my wife went or not?

ARCHIVIST   
I told you, we can only do investigations as a follow-up to a statement. Our hands are tied by red tape and bureaucracy.

SIGYN   
You’re a right bastard, you know that?

ARCHIVIST   
So they keep telling me.

SIGYN   
Whatever. If it’ll help you find Loki, I’ll give my stupid statement.

ARCHIVIST   
Alright then. Statement of Sigyn O’Reilly regarding the disappearance of her wife. Statement taken direct from subject, the nineteenth of April, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute. Statement begins.

SIGYN (Statement)   
Loki has always been a bit…unsettled. I love her, so much, but she struggles with reality sometimes. She has dreams, that are of this other life she has, with all the important people around her in it, but we’re immortal and in some sort of steampunk sci-fi universe where there’s a terrible regime to overthrow and you already know all of this because she came to give you a statement. Anyways, these dreams went away for a long time, and things were good. She was happy.

Then they came back. And they were worse, and I didn’t know how to help her. She came to give her statement about a month ago now, and then two weeks later, she’s gone. I called the police, and they’ve been looking, but there’s nothing. It’s not like Loki to disappear like that, either. She always says something to me, or to Thor, or even to Odin. We don’t talk with Odin much these days, but she’s still a family friend, more or less. In any case, Loki is just gone. I rang them both, but nothing from either.

I started looking through her things, to see if she left any sign of where she was going behind. All I find instead are her journal and all of her clothing. She didn’t take anything. I opened her journal, and started to read the recent entries, to see if she planned this or did something.

The last entry was from the day before she disappeared. It only said, ”the door opens, and the stars come in.” Over and over, for an entire page. I read a few more entries, and they’re almost completely devoted to her creepy dreams. I love my wife, more than anything, but those dreams are upsetting. Not to mention that they’ve taken such a toll on her there are times I can’t tell if she knows who she is. Nothing has been helping her even though I’ve looked all over for the best professionals. She talks about the great snake that will devour the world, and the inevitable end that will come when all is lost.

It’s fucking crazy, isn’t it? I brought the journal to the police when I contacted them, but they didn’t think it was any help. They found evidence of Loki leaving the house. They found out what time, and how long it took her. What they didn’t find was anything after our front lawn. Bunch of useless fucks, if you ask me. I normally don’t call the police, but my  _ wife _ went  _ missing _ .

I decided to start investigating more, and I found a loose floorboard in our bedroom. Loki always sleeps on the side of the bed closer to the window, so I hadn’t had a reason to go over there. Underneath there was a collection of paper, each with drawings on them. My wife doesn’t draw too often. She’s good for being out of practice, and there was writing too. It was clearly hers.

The drawings are capturing scenes from her dreams. She doesn’t tell me about all of them, but I know enough to clearly see what they are. There are drawings of us, together, and I have pushed some kind of tubing into her chest. None of the drawings have a particular background, various rainbow colors between black and white. Each one is more intense than the last. The last one I look at is me and Loki kissing while I’m holding this needle. It’s a long needle made of greyish silver metal, with these soft rainbow colors. Whenever I look at that drawing, I’m reminded of the ones where Loki has a tube plugged into her torso. I’m the one that put it there.

[There’s a long pause as the Archivist expects more, but there’s just a cathartic sigh.]

ARCHIVIST   
Statement ends.

SIGYN   
So? Are you going to be able to do anything about this? I know that your weird…organization does things that police can’t. Or won’t.

ARCHIVIST   
I will contact you if there are any follow-ups or developments. I’m sorry to hear about your wife.

SIGYN   
Can I hear her statement? Since she came here a little while before she disappeared?

ARCHIVIST   
If you go to the front desk, Sasha can deal with any requests for archival resources.

SIGYN   
Guess I’ll see myself out, then.

ARCHIVIST   
Thank you for your time, Mrs. O’Reilly.

SIGYN   
Whatever.

[CLICK.]

[CLICK.]

ARCHIVIST   
In the week following Sigyn O’Reilly’s statement, I have done more research into Loki O’Reilly’s statement. There’s not much to be said, in all honesty, beyond what I followed up on in the previous archival notes. The only lead we have at the moment to Loki’s disappearance is that Odin Evans has also vanished. Her house is completely locked and boarded, and no one has been able to get into contact with her. The police think the cases are unrelated, but given the timing…it’s hard to believe that. Unfortunately, until Martin gets back to me with the results of his investigation, there’s not much more to be said about Sigyn’s loss. It’s unfortunately just that. A loss. Recording ends.

[CLICK.]

[CLICK.]

ARCHIVIST   
Supplemental. This continued context of Loki O’Reilly’s dreams is concerning to say the least. I don’t know what is going on, or if this isn’t just some strange side effect of the more uncommon happenings that our archive attracts. In any case, I’m going to be keeping an eye on the investigation into Loki’s whereabouts, and hopefully have another conversation with her if she reemerges. End supplemental.

[CLICK.]


	3. Odin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Odin Evans regarding memories of a past lifetime and the events of Loki O'Reilly's disappearance. Statement originally given the twenty-eighth of April, 2017.

[CLICK.]

ARCHIVIST   
Two days ago, while I was out of the office, a woman came into the office to give a statement. Sasha sent her down to write her statement, and the woman, Odin Evans, claimed it was a follow-up to a previous statement, made by her former employee, Loki O’Reilly. There’s not much else to be said that isn’t said in the statement itself, so let’s get down to it.

Statement of Odin Evans regarding memories of a past lifetime and the events of Loki O'Reilly's disappearance. Statement originally given the twenty-eighth of April, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute. Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (Statement)   
Before you judge me too deeply, know that I am going directly from this statement to the police to turn myself in. I am submitting this so that you understand the full story, and do not paint me as a villain.

I have known for some time now that I have committed atrocities, but not in this place or time. I once served the black void of space, as much as I served myself as the ruler of all. I was the Allmother, and all were to serve me. I wanted to spread my reign to all corners of the solar system, and I devised a plan. A train to run through the stars, carrying me and my people from our home to every corner of the stars. In my waking life, I spend my time managing my business. I spend all my waking hours in pursuit of something I have never found. I always want more. More of what, you might ask? I could not tell you if I wanted to.

Perhaps what I wrote earlier is not exactly correct. I have committed atrocities in this time as well. I follow the writs of CEOs, people who grind employees under their feet in an attempt to get more profits. Always more, always higher income. Is there a reason for it? Not one I can think of, at this point. I have not changed all that much from what I remember, and there is a reason why I am no longer close with my dear friend Loki. We used to be very close, but she could not see my ambition for what it is.

She is a near-genius, however, and I could not lose her wisdom. In my life as the All-Mother, I captured her, and sentenced her to execution. Her knowledge was too great, and her creativity was unmatched. I faked her execution, and only I and a trusted officer knew that she lived. We brought her to a prison beneath my home, and she stayed there for the next thirty years. I had a device to link our minds. I wanted to access her genius when she would refuse to help me. Something went wrong. I had heard a calling my entire life. Connecting my mind with Loki’s, the calling became so loud I could hardly ignore it. After that, her ramblings became less coherent yet more brilliant. I discovered the way to protect the train, by strapping a living heart into its core. My glorious train was going to be completed, and nothing would stop its coming.

In this life, I could not bear for her to pull away from me. I called her, and asked her to come over to my house. Once there, I did as I had before, and I strapped her to my basement wall. I remembered to give her food and water sometimes, but we talked. We talked for hours, though sometimes I would not speak for long stretches, or Loki would refuse me. I begged her to acknowledge our shared past, and the knowledge that we could do it, and we could do it better this time. She cried the first time I said that. I don’t understand why. Surely, with newfound perspective in this life, she could understand the importance of answering the call.

The past couple of days, I’ve decided I will not be able to convince her. She will spend her remaining time with her wife, Sigyn. They will find one another in each life, but that will not change the inevitability of my work. I will let them have their peace. My task is yet ahead of me. And no one, not even you, Archivist, can stop it.

ARCHIVIST   
Statement ends. There was another page submitted that is not a part of the given statement. What it says is “I am the serpent that shall poison the sky and boil the sea. The land shall freeze eternal as Yog-Sothoth beckons us hence. All shall know my rule to be the last, and none shall survive my reign.” On the back of the paper there is an incantation of some sort that I could not pronounce if you asked me to. It directly quotes from H.P. Lovecraft’s  _ The Case of Charles Dexter Ward _ in which they summon the creature, Yog-Sothoth, mentioned in Odin’s phrase above. The entire page repeats this phrase over and over, to no productive end near as I can tell.

Following giving this statement, Odin did exactly as stated and turned herself into the police. They found Loki O’Reilly strapped to a wall in the basement of her house, clearly dehydrated and physically and mentally brutalized. I don’t know what went on in that basement, but it’s clear nothing good. She has been reunited with her wife, and the two of them have declined any follow-up questions. Understandably.

The culmination of this series of statements has come far sooner than I expected, and there is not much more to tell. If there is more to be found in the conclusion of this case, I will have to follow up with Loki O’Reilly in the future when she is more…available. Recording ends.

[CLICK.]

[CLICK.]

ARCHIVIST   
Supplemental. I have not managed to stay in contact with Loki O’Reilly, as she declined my attempts to get her help on furthering my investigation. While I understand she’s been through a lot, it’s getting very frustrating that I cannot find any reliable sources to work with. Especially considering that everyone in the Archives is a suspect. I am continually frustrated by leads pulling away from me just as I pursue them, but perhaps this is for the best. It is hard to say if exposing Loki to any further information on this would be beneficial, or just drive her further away from her hold on reality. End supplemental.

[CLICK.]


End file.
